


Catching Up

by Velvedere



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Vibrators, angsty fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-25
Updated: 2016-07-25
Packaged: 2018-07-26 15:07:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7578814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Velvedere/pseuds/Velvedere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Keith and Shiro haven't had a lot of alone time since starting off on this crazy adventure...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Catching Up

Keith bounced a little when his back hit the bed. Once, before he settled against the springy resistance of the mattress. The bunks in the Altean castle-ship were top notch. Soft. Supportive. Fit for royalty. But they were also small. Not really meant to be shared by more than one person.

Keith was fine with that. It meant he and Shiro had to climb in close together.

Shiro braced his weight on one knee, leaning over to kiss him before Keith’s hands tugged on his shirt, pulling him insistently the rest of the way. Hands and knees pressed dents into the mattress around him; dips that swelled to reform when the hands were taken away. When they closed around Keith’s back and shoulders, holding him up. Holding him close.

He and Shiro had gotten almost no alone time since they’d taken off on this crazy mission. Even before leaving Earth, after the rescue at the Garrison, Lance and Hunk and Pidge were constantly hovering, asking questions, wondering at Keith’s irritation and exactly why he seemed so frustrated when Shiro was _right there_ after…how long had it been? Over a year? Keith didn’t remember exactly.

And it was hard to recall details just now.

Fingers spread over the back of Shiro’s head, feeling the short buzz of the way he cut his hair. That hadn’t changed. The streak of white was new. Keith touched it, drawn with an almost kittenish urge, to see if it was still as soft as he remembered. His fingertips trailed down over the scar – that was new, too – to touch. To make sure it was real.

He looked over all of it lost in wonder. Awe and marvel.

It wasn’t just little things that had changed about Shiro over the time he’d been missing. It was more than that. He was…harder. More gaunt. Maybe even a little more pale. There was an efficiency to him that Keith didn’t remember ever noticing before: no excess at all to his body or the way he moved. A wariness in his eyes. He was…honed. Tempered. Stripped down to only what was absolutely necessary.

 _To survive_ , Keith’s thoughts supplied for him. He tried to push them away. To bury them under the sheer deluge of joy he felt at being able to touch him again.

It must have been there on his face, because Shiro pushed himself up enough to look down at him, taking away the press of his weight that Keith instantly missed.

“What?” he said, that half-cocked lilt of his smile the same as always.

It made Keith weak.

“I just…” he started, trailing off. Lost instantly again in looking up at him, gaze wandering his face, taking in every detail while his hands felt back along the line of his jaw and neck. Down over his shoulders where his shirt still covered him.

They hadn’t managed to get all the way undressed in their hurry.

“I really missed you,” he finished, digging his fingers in where they landed.

Shiro laughed a little. Quiet and gentle. The Shiro he remembered.

“I missed you too.”

He cupped the back of Keith’s head and tipped him up to touch their lips together again. Keith held on, hands and arms latched wherever they could find a grip, as if preparing to keep him. Refusing to let go of him ever again.

Eventually Shiro reared back enough to give Keith room to toss off his jacket. The black shirt he wore underneath.

“Lance said you dropped out of the Garrison after you heard.”

Keith ducked his eyes to one side. Guilty avoidance.

“I couldn’t do it,” he mumbled, letting his weight sag. He looked down over the edge of the bed at the floor. “It didn’t seem worth it…without you there…”

“Because I wasn’t there so you could do everything just like me?”

“It was more than that!” Keith snapped. He turned back to him, weight braced on his elbows, but couldn’t look at him for long. Not at that shining face. Those eyes and that smile and everything behind them that he held so dear.

His hands dug into the sheets.

“It was…there just didn’t seem to be a point. You know? What was the point in doing anything if I couldn’t tell you about it later? I wanted you to be there, running just ahead of me, so that I had to do everything I could to keep up.”

Shiro’s hand – his new hand – reached down to tip up Keith’s chin.

Their eyes met.

“You know you don’t have to put me on such a pedestal,” said Shiro, his smile sobering. “I’m not perfect.”

 _Yes you are_ , Keith wanted to say, tightening down against the urge. _Even your flaws are perfect._ He shook his head instead, touching his fingers across the strangely warm, smooth texture of his arm. Careful in where he roamed.

“I know,” he said, smiling a little himself. He hoped it looked less dopey than it felt. “But…I wanted to be…worthy. Of you.”

Shiro cupped his cheek. He smiled again. That smile that made Keith’s belly flutter.

“You are,” he said, radiating the deepest sincerity. His voice softened. “I love you.”

It was a terrible cliché, really, which was most of why it bothered Keith so much in the beginning. Shiro: the star athlete, the model student, the kind and sweet and nice guy who was everybody’s friend and went out of his way to help people and started study groups and carried old ladies’ groceries for them… The addition of his perfect ass and stupidly boyish smile made it seem only natural that everyone would have a crush on him. He had a way of looking at people that made them feel…important. Like they mattered. Like they were needed. That had been Keith’s weak spot since day one.

Also that they wound up sharing a dorm room and Keith saw him shirtless a lot didn’t help.

Shiro was the kind of person who could have had anyone he wanted. Meanwhile, Keith: salty, sullen, not so good at making friends. Accepted into the Garrison because of his talents. Most things came easy to him, and he could have coasted on through the entire curriculum without expending too much effort or care.

But then there was Shiro, making him _want_ to care. Making him _want_ to do the best he could. Shiro setting such an example that everyone wanted to follow him. They wanted to be just like him, and do anything they could to earn that smile. All the reward anyone required.

Everything a leader was supposed to be.

It seemed pathetic and disgustingly predictable that Keith would fall for a guy like that. Everything that he wasn’t. What Shiro saw in him – why he picked Keith out of so many other possibilities – Keith was never sure, but was too busy being grateful and relieved to ask.

Keith touched Shiro’s hand, hesitating for only a moment before he asked:

“Can you…feel…?”

Shiro blinked, needing a moment to realize what he meant. He looked to his arm, the alien metal a gleaming dark color reflecting the light, its craft and design perfectly functional for a human limb, though there was a sleekness and strange energy to it. He opened his fingers and closed them, testing.

“Yeah,” he said, nodding imperceptibly. “Well, enough. It’s…different. But if it was meant for an arena, it wouldn’t have done much good as a limb without nerve receptors.”

He grinned again. A little bit of his science nerd showing through and downplaying the severity of what hid behind his words. Everything he had been through.

Keith breathed, needing a moment, as he held Shiro’s hand loosely in his own grip, thumb stroking along the side of his palm.

Then he brought his hand down and kissed it. Slow. Deliberate. Looking up through Shiro’s fingers as he slid his tongue between them. Along their length. Slipped the tips of them just inside his mouth.

By the slackened look on Shiro’s face…yeah. He could still feel that.

He bent over him and claimed Keith’s mouth, dark fingers of his prosthetic hand linking with and pinning Keith’s down to one side. Keith moaned and arched and pushed up against him, just wanting to feel him – _needing_ to feel him – and forgetting any other questions or things they probably should have been talking about.

And they would. After. After this.

Though some questions they didn’t have to talk about. Keith saw the answer, written there on Shiro’s body once they finally got around to undressing him. Scars. Marks. Dark patterns like a brand burned into his skin: each one a separate story from the arena. Keith made himself look at them – made himself reach out…touch – and Shiro let him, a sorrow mirrored in his face in the moments when their eyes met.

Shiro, ever noble, sad that Keith had to see him like this. Regretting the grief he caused him.

Keith, just sad Shiro ever had to go through such a thing. The burning prick of tears in his eyes in a swelling mix of anger and sympathy. Sorrow that he hadn’t been there beside him the whole time.

Keith took his time kissing each spot and mark Shiro bore. Each one a silent apology.

When they lay back down together, he wrapped Shiro in his body, holding onto him in every possible way, fierce and defiant and ready to tear apart anything or anyone that would dare try to touch him again.

And Shiro…he sighed, closing his eyes, letting himself be held and soft and weak for just this moment. This time when he didn’t have to be a leader. When he didn’t have to protect everybody.

Hands stroked down along bodies and faces. They explored, rediscovering each other, never more than a breath away from the next kiss even as Keith parted his legs; felt Shiro’s warm, alien hand wander down between them. Rub against the dip in his rear.

“I thought about you every day,” Shiro whispered, buried in the dark sanctuary against Keith’s neck, under the fall of his hair. He closed his eyes and listened to Keith’s breathing. The way it caught or changed when he touched him just where he liked it…just like he used to. “I don’t remember a lot of it, but I must have. There wasn’t any other way I could have made it through…”

His voice trailed off. Keith squinted open one eye and looked down at him, curious; and a little irritated that he’d stopped.

“Um. Keith?” said Shiro.

“What?” he grumbled, out of breath.

“I think this hand can vibrate.”

“What? What are you talking abou— _ohhhhhfuck…!” ___


End file.
